Many problem solving questions involve simultaneous equations or quadratics.
Example: The height of a rectangle is 2 cm longer than the base. If the area is 48 cm 2 find the length of the base.
If the base is
the height is
The area is
and equating this to 48 gives
Expanding the brackets and subtracting 48 gives
We can factorise this expression to give
Equating each factor to 0 gives
We cannot have a negative length so
This leaves